Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Male Leadership

doctrine. . .. That they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored” (Titus 221,4,5). Paul exhorted Christian wives to submit to their husbands. The bas is for his exhortation is given most compellingly in Ephesians 5:23: “For the husband is the head of the wife.” If there is any question as to what is intended by the phrase, “the head of the wife,” Paul adds the analogy of Christ’s headship over the Church, “as Christ also is the head of the church.” The word “head” (Greek, kephale’) is used figura tively to mean, as is its constant use, “authority over” and “leader ship,” not “source” or “origin,” as biblical feminists assert. 3 Colossians 3218 also states the principle found in Ephesians 5: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Com menting on the Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 passages, George Knight, IH, biblical commentator and New Testament professor at Knox Theo logical Seminary, observes: “this particular exhortation to the wife to submit to her husband is the universal teaching of the New Testament. Every passage that deals with the relationship of the wife to her hus band tells her to ‘submit to’ him, using this same verb (hupotasso‘): Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1; Titus 2:4f.”4 According to Ephesians 5, the manner in which the wife is to sub mit to her husband is, “as to the Lord,” and in Colossians 3, “as is fitting in the Lord.” This means that the wife is to submit to her hus band as she would submit to the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Peter 326). Using the analogy of Christ and the Church, the wife is to submit to her husband “as the church is subject to Christ.” Knight adds: “She should submit to her husband as she submits to the Lord. The com parative ‘as to the Lord’ conjures up what should and does character ize the godly submission a Christian renders to the Lord Jesus. This one qualification says it all.”5 Paul teaches that the marriage relationship is a living picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church: “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). The husband and wife relationship thus mirrors the relationship be tween Christ and His Church. Christ, the Bridegroom, is the Head, and the Church, the bride, is subject to Him in everything. Likewise, the husband is the head of the marriage relationship and the wife

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